New 45/70 Rio Grand wont feed....slow warranty

[AKdodger]

When I moved to Alaska this year I saved up my money to buy a good all around rifle for bear safety and hunting moose and caribou. I thought the Rossi 45-70 Rio Grand would fit the bill well and bought one on May 1. After putting one round through it I discovered it was defective and wouldn’t feed. Since the rifle had a lifetime warranty I sent it in to get fixed. After about 6 weeks I began to contact the Rossi customer service. This is the only gun I have for bear protection and by this time bear season was in full swing. I was told it should be done 6-8 weeks after it was received. I thought this was a bit excessive but couldn’t do much about it. I continued to call the customer service every few weeks. After they had the rifle for 10 weeks a gunsmith finally looked at it. Apparently they decided to replace the barrel which has nothing to do with shells not releasing from the magazine. By this time hunting season is creeping up and my only rifle is still not back. Now I have been calling them every week and get the same response they are waiting for the barrel to arrive from Brazil. This week I found out the barrel is being shipped by boat and they still have no idea when they will get it. Few weeks ago I went on a caribou hunt and had no rifle which seems ridiculous seeing I bought this Rossi brand new on May1. ......
....Update moose season is now over. I kept bugging the customer service ( who are all very freindly) and finally got to talk to a supervisor. He decided to send me a new one since it has been 16 weeks. I am now waiting for it to arrive.
Is this normal for a repair? Is my problem (shells not releasing from the magazine) a common problem with 45/70? I want to buy a Taurus 44 mag. Dbl action but don't want to have another experience like this one.

[pricedo]

I didn't have any problems with my Rossi Rio Grande but if I sent back every Amadeo Rossi 92 I bought that wouldn't feed NIB I'd be an octogenarian before I fired a single shot.

What I did as soon as I bought a Rossi was strip the gun apart and give it a good cleaning with dechlorinated brake parts cleaner (some say alcohol is cheaper & better) and with small files, stones and emery paper remove and smooth the machining/drilling burrs.

Make sure you thoroughly scrub the inside of the magazine tube out with a gun cleaning brush & swab.

The feeding problem with your gun is likely caused by burrs on the lip &/or in the throat of the magazine tube where it joins the receiver or on the lifter or some other part. Once the gun is cleaned, deburred & lubricated there's a 99% chance the problem will go away.

Replacing the barrel isn't going to do a thing to fix the feeding problem.

Rossi like Remlin has QC problems and it is obvious they don't function or live fire test their guns. They go straight from the assembly line into the box.

If you want a face to face with Rossi's QC inspector go look in the mirror. People keep insisting that Rossi has changed in this regard under the Braztech banner.........I doubt it very much. There's a reason a Miroku Winchester, Turnbull or Pedersoli costs $2500 and a Rossi cost $400.

Rossis unlike much more expensive leverguns that cost 2 or 3 times as much like Miroku Winchesters, Chiappas, Pedersolis or Turnbulls are "hands on" guns from day 1. Rossis remind me of those old CVA kits where you got a "in the rough" gun NIB and had to do all the fit & finish work yourself.

When you get that RG back with the new barrel that still won't feed strip it apart and clean, deburr and oil it with good quality temperature insensitive gun oil and I'll bet you'll be going hunting the next day.

[joec]

All I can say is my 92 in 45 Colt was sent back after I cleaned it the first time and tried to feed some snap caps through it, when it wouldn't feed. Now I don't live in Alaska but Kentucky so it is a lot closer to Miami Florida. I got mine back in 5 business days fixed. Have since put thousands of rounds through it.

I recently bought a Rio Grande 45-70 also and got it home, stripped it and cleaned it. Now I just found one burr any where inside which took about a minute to polish off. The other problem was the loading gate was a bear to push a round in. Got that fixed and checked out the rest of it and it was prefect. Never had a problem with it since. I will agree with pricedo that it needs the packing grease cleaned out before ever trying to put a round through it.

[pricedo]

All I can say is my 92 in 45 Colt was sent back after I cleaned it the first time and tried to feed some snap caps through it, when it wouldn't feed. Now I don't live in Alaska but Kentucky so it is a lot closer to Miami Florida. I got mine back in 5 business days fixed. Have since put thousands of rounds through it.

I recently bought a Rio Grande 45-70 also and got it home, stripped it and cleaned it. Now I just found one burr any where inside which took about a minute to polish off. The other problem was the loading gate was a bear to push a round in. Got that fixed and checked out the rest of it and it was prefect. Never had a problem with it since. I will agree with pricedo that it needs the packing grease cleaned out before ever trying to put a round through it.

Oddly my 16" Amadeo Rossi M92 in 44 Mag won't cycle the red snap-cap dummy cartridges cause they're too fat & square in the meplat area but it will cycle the white box and green box 240 grain RNSPs as fast as you can pump the finger lever........go figure. I always test mine with live ammo in a safe area.

The stiff loading gates are easy to fix by shaving a little metal at a time off the sides of the flat spring making them narrower & weaker til the gate feels right as per the Steve's Gunz DVD.........took all of 20 minutes. You don't want that gate too sloppy either so don't take off too much metal.........you can't put it back.

I don't own a Braztech R92 so maybe things have improved overall in the QC department (there might even BE a Rossi QC department now ) but the OPs story sounds very familiar.

I've been buying & selling & tuning up Rossis for a very long time.

[Ranch Dog]

After putting one round through it I discovered it was defective and wouldn’t feed.

I sure wish you would have been able to better describe the problem here, I bet we could have avoided the return with a file stroke or to. "wouldn't feed" covers a lot of ground, it would have to be narrowed down a bit.

Boy, customer service blows and there is no excuse for it! Might be parts but I really doubt if it was related to the barrel unless it was a poor or rough chamber cut. As always, Pricedo offers sound advice about checking the new one when it arrives.

I know RG parts have been on the "slow boat" from Brazil with this being a new design. I have a very early RG4570 and immediately ordered some spares, parts that I have seen fail in a 336. Those parts were all put on back order but started arriving about two months ago. What I've really wanted in hand, the ejectors and ejector springs, arrived on Friday. This rifle design is coming up on its first year anniversary of being in customer's hands in November and hopefully the boat will be in on the spares.

I have returned four firearms to Braztech, all handguns, and three were returned within the week. I did have to wait five weeks on a new barrel for my 25PLY. I had the first pistol in a retail customers hand, but they did not have any barrels available in the US. That pistol had a non-concentric chamber/barrel cut.

[AKdodger]

I had the gun apart several times before I sent it back cleaning out the grease and looking for burs. The sporting goods store I bought it from also cleaned it before they sent it back but with no improvement.
The carrier dropped down a few mm less than a fully functional one we compared it with. It seemed a groove on the side of it was not milld deep enough. This seemed to be the reason it wouldn't release shells from the magazine.
I guess they are sending me a new one rather than trying to fix the first since it has taken so long. They told me they shipped it last Tuesday but when I called and checked a week later they said it still hasn't shipped and may not for anothe week. Par for the course at this point.

[akuser47]

Well I hope once you get it back that all is well with it after this much headache.

[AKdodger]

It has now been 3 weeks since the manager told me it would be shipped. I still have no idea where the gun is. The last time I called the customer service the guy was either asleep or drunk and was no help. They have had my gun for 18 weeks.

[Ranch Dog]

I think I would contact them again and speak to a manager.

"...it is the new CEO's (Mark Kesser) policy to have all returns for warranty fixed properly and returned to the owner with in two months. If that is not possible the gun will be marked for destruction and replaced with a new one."

This statement the from the Taurus Plant Tour on the TaurusArmed.net forum. Almost time to pony up and I would let them know! Me personally, I would have a letter to Mark Kesser in mail tomorrow.

[akuser47]

I sure hope they get this right for him maybe even test fire the replacment and be GTG I anticipate the results of this .